Meanwhile, a different Rare Inferno did his actual job. Quille Treten hauled in firewood for gigantic cauldrons and more reasonable chili pots, set up stands for pumpkins and other gourds, and supported barn builders with his broad back when the ladders were all booked up. No sooner did he complete one task than he asked for another. Even the better rarities began to take notice.

“Good hustle out there. Take this gold star.” Boxer Andit slapped a sticker on Quille's beard with his ungloved hand. “Keep that oxygen in your lungs, remember your footwork, eat some eggs.”

“Of course.” Quille patted his new star into his beard. “Have to do what I can. I wish I could give everyone something special, but I don't have any pumpkins. No chili recipes either.”

“Special? Special. I don't know about special. Fundamentals are more my thing. Hey Poit! What's a special job for this kid?”

“This . . . kid?” Count Poitnem came over and eyed Quille Treten's boyish beard that extended past his belt and his thick, juvenile eyebrows. “Regardless. Special job?”

“I was just saying, would be grand if I could do everyone a kindness. Give everyone a gift at once, as it were. Only my brain can't help with that kind of thing. Hasn't got any practice.”

“Hm. A sort of idea seems to speak to me. Come this way.” Count Poitnem and Quille left Boxer Andit to get back to his hustling while they walked toward the sheds. “The party ought to take place tomorrow by my projections. I proposed before that we bear down and begin to move the stored items back to the restored Armory after the party, and that proposal was approved. The officers will load and offload the weapons and genii, but I genuinely doubt they will bother with this.”

He reached the storehouse closest to the hill and opened the doors. Inside a mad jumble of everything that dropped from every opponent in every mode, not to mention login rewards and event shop inventories lay there like the hoard of a dragon that terrorized dumpsters and garage sales.

“Whether this mess is left here or there makes no difference to the most dutiful officer. Even so, organization is overdue. At the latest, Part Three is likely to add item types to please the collection compulsions of players.”

He closed the doors and led Quille away. “If, by some unseen hand, the contents were categorized and the depot cleaned, the cares of the officers would be relieved. I warn you though not to rely on their gratitude, which if given a stat would universally be zero.”

“Just what I like to hear.”

Elsewhere around the site, work continued all day until it stopped, not because the officers grew bored and wandered off as they themselves had anticipated, but rather when nothing remained undone. An orange awning spread from a stately ziggurat over vast grounds containing cauldrons that had yet to bubble, desks for judges and a podium for the prize winners; ten chili cooking stations (enough for two representatives from each element), tables with chairs and cushions for centaurs, stages to display gourds which had been incorporated into dioramas depicting the scene of the presenter's choice as well as a tank of water to receive the gourds after the judging phase ended, and in short everything necessary for an All Ages Cauldron-centric Nileriffic Frontier Gourd-Bobbing Arts and Crafts Mystery Mash Chili Cookout.

Some officers attempted surreptitious additions to the decorations, hanging up some paper bats here or a plaster cat wrapped in bandages there. Others ran laps around the carnival grounds under the pretense of patrolling and tripped their fellow runners under no plausible pretense, but for Quakes the sight was justification enough. More and more workers came to a common conclusion.

“It's a perfect day for camping out!” Heartful Azalea proposed, excitement itself seeming to shine through her glistening green skin. “When's the last time we did that?”

Formal Wakve harrumphed. “During some of our backstories, and at no time since. I certainly hope none of us fall prey to such folly as that, when we ought to retire to Freegate to wait out the night. Really now, Azalea.”

“Don't tell me you believe all those rumors. No, wait, let's all go ahead and believe them. I hope a glitched enemy does show up. Hey Lasva, keep your camera ready! We can all make a pact. If anybody loses levels, the rest of us will go grind Vigilant Patrol with them. Now the worst that can happen is something thrilling.”

Enough of the adventurous officers signed on for Azalea's plan that the less intrepid types judged themselves no safer in a deserted Freegate than there and stuck around. Cadmos posted a notice in the main hall to inform any latecomers about the circumstances and rejoined the body of officers at the camp.